


34 Excuses for Why We Failed at Love

by CalypsoTheDeceiver



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Klaroline feels, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:04:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5534078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalypsoTheDeceiver/pseuds/CalypsoTheDeceiver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything was fine... for a while. But then she is so lonely it's eating her alive. He tries but he doesn't know how to love her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	34 Excuses for Why We Failed at Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is a poem of the same name by Warsan Shire which reminded me of Klaroline so I added some Klaroline angst to it.  
> The italics are the original poem.

_1\. I’m lonely so I do lonely things_. Admittedly it had taken a while for the loneliness to set in. But once it did it overwhelmed her. There was no one to talk to. Sure she could talk to Klaus but he wasn't like her. They couldn't relate to each other's experiences of the world.

 _2\. Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same._ And in the time that she'd known him she'd become different. Harder. She couldn't help it. It came with the territory. Lover of the original hybrid was not a position that afforded room for weakness.

 _3\. You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood._ He was still broken. A little. Though he claimed not to be. Though he claimed she had fixed him. Nothing could truly erase the pain of his youth.

 _4\. I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home_. He wasn't ready for her. He doesn't realise it but she does. He's busy. Hybrids. New Orleans. Emotionally unavailable, a therapist would call it. He simply doesn't have enough space for relationships.

 _5\. You’re a ghost town I’m too patriotic to leave._ She loves him. It's the reason it took her so long to see it. The reason she stayed so long. She loves him desperately.

 _6\. You're the beginning of the dream I want to remember._ And the vision of him, of them, that she has in her mind has kept her going. One day they'd get there. She used to be so sure.

 _7\. I didn’t call him back because he likes his girls voiceless._ She doesn't tell him this because she doesn't know how to phrase it, doesn't know how to make him understand.

 _8\. It’s not that he wants to be a liar; it’s just that he doesn’t know the truth._ Because he loves her. There's no doubt about that. He's blind to their problems.

 _9\. I couldn’t love you, you were a small war._ But how, she wonders, can they work? When he has lived 1000 years inside himself. Fighting himself. And she has lived 20, trying not to fight anyone.

 _10\. We covered the smell of loss with jokes._ She still doesn't know how to explain. It would blindside him. She covers it so well.

 _11\. I didn’t want to fail at love like our parents._ She thinks of her own parents. Of how they failed at love. Without even knowing it she thinks of his parents and how they failed too.

 _12\. You made the nomad in me build a house and stay_. And she wants to stay so badly because she loves him so terribly. She wants them to fit.

 _13\. I’m not a dog._ He has become so complacent with her. He leaves so often to deal with this or that. His kingdom has started to take precedence. He knows she'll stay.

 _14\. We were trying to prove our blood wrong._ For all her life she'd never been the one. Maybe that's why she's let it happen. To prove something to all the people who passed her up.

 _15\. I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things._ But the loneliness did not subside. It ate and ate at her.

 _16\. Yes, I’m insecure, but so was my mother and her mother._ She thinks of her mother again. Of how she ignored all her own feelings, throwing herself into her work. Caroline isn't like that. Is she?

 _17\. No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot._ Love is emotional, she tells herself. She can't expect to be happy all the time. He loves her and she loves him and that should be enough.

 _18\. He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me._ Maybe she let it happen because she's scared. Scared no one else would love her if they knew her like he does.

 _19\. You were too cruel to love for a long time._ He loves her and he would never hurt her. Not on purpose anyway. But as hardened as she has become death still shakes her. His merciless killings still shake her.

 _20\. It just didn’t work out._ And maybe they're just too different.

 _21\. My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back._ She tries to tell herself that her father didn't affect her. He thought she was a monster but it doesn't matter. Klaus loves her, he doesn't think that at all. But she is, even if it's only a little bit.

 _22\. I can’t sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth._ When he's away she she can feel his absence like a shard of glass that she carries in her chest.

 _23\. I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home._ Now she knows she must leave. She needs to be a person again.

 _24\. The women in my family die waiting._ She would not be like her mother. Afraid to try something new.

 _25\. Because I didn’t want to die waiting for you._ She knows nothing of eternity but she feels like she's been waiting for too long.

 _26\. I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me._ Even when he was there the unbearable dread of his departure lingered over her soul like a rain cloud.

 _27\. You’re the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick._ She thinks of those words, "However long it takes." She wonders if maybe one day they could try again.

 _28\. He sent me a text that said “I love you so bad.”_ She cried. What do you do when the way someone loves you isn't the way you want to be loved?

 _29\. His heart wasn’t as beautiful as his smile._ The fact that she's more scared for those caught in the aftermath of her departure than she is for either him or herself is telling.

 _30\. We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love._ How can one person make her simultaneously sure and doubtful of everything.

 _31\. Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you._ Maybe she was simply scared to be alone.

 _32\. I’m a lover without a lover._ She loves him. He loves her.

 _33\. I’m lovely and lonely._ It isn't enough.

 _34\. I belong deeply to myself._ She needs to be able to belong to herself before she belongs to anyone else.

She leaves.


End file.
